The first thing I ever posted here was the first real perl program I had ever "cronned" on my system. It was a useful little script to backup directories and allowed for exclusion of file/sub directories.. well I tweaked it a bit recently to be much nicer looking and alot more functional as far as reporting info to the user of the program.. so here's the new backup.pl that's running on my system:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# 
# Script used to back up files to another
# partition.
#
# Code by Brad Lhotsky <brad@divisionbyzero.net>
#
$|++;
use strict;

###########################
# Configs:
#
my $MOUNT = "yes";
my $PARTITION = "/dev/hdd1";
my $MOUNTPOINT = "/mnt/tmp";
my $BACKUPDIR = $MOUNTPOINT;
my $CONFIG = "/root/backup/backup.conf";
my $ERRORFILE = "/root/backup/backup.err";

die "config file $CONFIG couldn't be found: $!\n" unless -e $CONFIG;

my %TARS=();
unlink($ERRORFILE) if -e $ERRORFILE;

if($MOUNT) {
        system("mount $PARTITION $MOUNTPOINT");
}

open(CFG, "<$CONFIG") or die "couldn't open $CONFIG: $!\n";
while(local $_ = <CFG>) {
        chomp;
        s/^\s+//; s/\s+$//;
        next if /^#/;
        next if !$_;
        (local $_, my @JUNK) = split /#/;
        s/^\s+//; s/\s+$//;
        my ($tarfile,$directory,@EXCLUDES) = split;
        push @EXCLUDES,'..';
        push @EXCLUDES,'.';
        my $ok = &backup($tarfile,$directory,\@EXCLUDES);
        if($ok) {
                print "Tarred $tarfile successfully! ($directory)\n";
                $TARS{$tarfile}=1;
        }
        else {
                print "Tar of $directory to $tarfile failed!\n";
        }
}

foreach my $tarfile (keys %TARS) {
        &compress($tarfile);
}

if($MOUNT) {
        system("umount $PARTITION");
}

sub backup {
        my ($tarfile,$dir,$exc) = @_;
        return 0 unless $tarfile && $dir && $exc;
        if($dir !~ /\/$/) { $dir .= '/'; }
        if($tarfile !~ /^\//) { $tarfile = $BACKUPDIR . "/$tarfile"; }
        my $check = "$dir/.tar";
        return 0 unless -e $check;
        if(-e $tarfile) {
                return 0 unless -d $dir;
                opendir(LS, $dir) or die "couldn't open $dir for listi
+ng: $!\n";
                while(local $_ = readdir(LS)) {
                        #chomp;
                        my $skip=0;
                        foreach my $file (@$exc) {
                                $skip=1, last if ($_ eq $file);
                        }
                        next if $skip;
                        my $file = $dir . $_;
                        my $append = "tar -rf $tarfile $file 2>> $ERRO
+RFILE";
                        system($append);
                        print "\t$file\n";
                }
                print "$tarfile appended to!\n";
        } else {
                my $create = "tar -cf $tarfile $check 2>> $ERRORFILE";
                print "$tarfile created!\n";
                system($create);
                &backup($tarfile,$dir,$exc);
        }
}

sub compress { 
        my $tarfile = shift;
        if($tarfile !~ /^\//) { $tarfile = $BACKUPDIR . "/$tarfile"; }
        my $gzipit = 'gzip -f ' . $tarfile . '.gz ' . $tarfile . " 2>>
+ $ERRORFILE";
        print "GZipping $tarfile .... ";
        system($gzipit);
        print "done!\n";
}
[download]

I know its nothing great, but compared to the old one, its definately a step up.

feel free to go "WTF ARE YOU DOING THAT FOR????? DO THIS:", I always welcome criticism, its the only way to get better.
thanks to everyone who's helped me in the past.

UPDATED
I took most fo your suggestions, haven't had time to download/install any modules to make this look nicer..
thanks for your input ;)
-brad..

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